Forum Discussion
SharePoint sites vs. Site Collections - CONFUSED!
Thanks Dean. I completely agree with the advice of keeping it slow and simple.
A very basic question, I was trying to find out how to create additional "sites" within a collection, so I went to that collection (say https://abc.sharepoint.com/sites/Collection-1) by clicking on the URL. Which is basically the root site created automatically for new collection. On visithing this site, when we go to 'Site Contents' it gives option to create "Sub-sites" (screen below). I was trying to find out how do we actually create "sites" (instead of subsites) within a collection. If this option of "subsite" at the collection level is actually just a terminology and these are effectively the "sites" then that's fine. Just wanted to make sure I am not missing anything while setting up the base structure.
Truely appreciate so valuable insights.
It is just terminology. Site collections contain sites (which can also be called subsites for simplicity).
Site collections are frequently called sites, because people are lazy and MS does not have technical editors enforcing consistent usage of terminology in their documentation:)
When writing code, sites are called webs, which makes this whole topic all the more confusing.
While this article was written for 2013, it applies to SPOnline and may be helpful, https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc263094.aspx
- Not sure if I hijacked this thread (Paul Martello replied to Dean Gross 2 hours ago). I was responding to you. Regardless, I do have admin privileges. For the second question, I just needed validation.
You must be SharePoint Online Admin to see the SP admin center.
the answer to your 2nd question is clearly stated in the message shown on your screen shot.
In the future, i would recommend starting a new conversation instead of hijacking other threads like this.
Thanks for getting back to me. Two final questions:
- How do you enable the SP Admin Center Preview? Don't have the banner on the SharePoint admin center.
- I did not create the new team site, someone else did. This team site was created under the existing top-level root collection. I can view the group connected to the new site collection, but I cannot see any owners or members. I believe it is because I have only Exchange permissions and cannot modify Office 365 groups, yes?
When you do that you are creating a new Site Collection that is connected to an Office Group. It will be created in the path specified in the SPO Admin Center, Setting page, Site Creation-Create Group under option. This site may not show up in the SPO Admin Center at this time unless you have the SP Admin Center Preview deployed.
when you create the new site, you assign Owners to it, these people get added to the Office Group where they are assigned the Owner attribute/role and you assign Members, which get added to the same Office Group with the Member attribute flagged. These attributes determine who shows up in the SCA group (office group owners) and the SPO Members group (Office Group members).
As the SPO Admin, you always have the ability to add additional people to the SP Owner group or the SCA group to any site, but you may need to be granted permission separately to edit the Office Group.
My recommendation to my clients is to learn the new Office Groups, use them and try to stay away from the old SP groups unless absolutely necessary to fulfill a complex security requirement.
Dean,
Lets say I do not want to create a subsite/page off the team site, but go to the SharePoint homepage and click Create site. I believe I am creating a new site collection not "affiliated" with the Team site (part of the root collection), correct? Also, what can a SharePoint admin "administer" under such conditions? If someone creates a new site collection (i.e., SP homepage>Create site), can an admin designate site collection admins? I am having trouble doing so with Admin privileges. Also, I cannot view the new team site created by someone in another department, nor can I assign him permissions for the team site he created. Some of these questions are redudant, I know some of the answers, but just some validation! Thanks much!
I agree with Dean - the terminology is confusing and often misused for convenience (or maybe laziness as he suggests). As a general practice, I would try to create a separate site collection for each unit of work - a team, a project, or even a department Communication Site. When you create a new "site" from SharePoint home, you are actually creating a new site collection. For now, you can connect "modern" related sites with navigation links or custom web parts.
